A Day at Watson Lake

Our new friends, Bill and Paula, mentioned that they enjoyed Watson Lake while they stayed here, so we headed there on our first full day at Prescott Valley.  Watson Lake is a city-owned area, so it only costs $2 for a parking pass to enter the area.  Have we mentioned that we are so impressed with our new town?

While Mark finished pumping up our inflatable Sea Eagle kayak, Denisa was wandering around the shore taking pictures.  We saw many pairs of mallards, and this pair was napping on the shore while we were just a few feet away.  Much of the lake is surrounded by huge granite boulders, so this area is called "The Granite Dells."  You can also see a couple on the trail, and we'll be taking that hike later.

 We also had a Canadian goose guarding the boat ramp, with another view of the water we are preparing to launch on.

We had a great time kayaking the entire perimeter of the lake.  Most of the time we were weaving in and out of rock boulders and our view from the kayak looked something like this . . .

Since we were on the water in the middle of the day and in the middle of the week, we were the only ones on the lake most of the time.  Of course, we did have some company from the local water fowl.  We love watching them take off, including those first few wing flaps when it looks like they are walking on the water.

The far west side of the lake goes into a shaded area, and looked like we were on a completely different body of water.

As we paddled under a cottonwood forest, it also looked like we changed from spring to winter.  The floating cotton looked a little like snow on the water, with cottonwood "snowflakes" in the air.

We paddled for five miles around the lake and because we were taking our time and enjoying it so much it took us 3.5 hours!  Then it was time to roll up the kayak, and hike the trail around the lake.  This was the view of the lake from one of those tall granite hills, showing the boulders that we had just paddled around.

The granite dells were just as much fun to scramble over as they were to paddle between.  It was a great hike on a beautiful day!  These are our favorite two shots from a hike that took us all the way around the lake.  The trail is well marked with painted white circles on the boulders to follow.  Mark thought a goose with a sense of humor could lay some white goose poop around the rocks just to confuse hikers.

 We were at Watson Lake all day, and would certainly recommend it to anyone staying in the Prescott area!  Just in case you might think that there are no flowers among these granite dells, Denisa spied a pink-flowering tree to frame one side of a picture of the lake.  Flowers, clear blue water, interesting clouds, and granite dells all in one picture.  Score!